Hey All,

I changed my brake pads the other day and I noticed the rubber seal around the pistons in my caliper had a tear in it. Is that bad? Do i need to replace ASAP?

I'll be doing mostly street driving until October.

 

You do not need to replace it ASAP. It is a dust boot and it helps to prevent dirt and junk getting into the piston assembly. The brakes will work fine but you should replace the boot at some point. If you leave the boot off or if it is damaged you will need to rebuild your brakes more frequently (replacing the nylon piston seal inside the caliper).

 

That outer rubber dust boot does not stand up well to the heat of track use. Mine always have tears and melted spots in them. No biggie.

But yeah, it does mean that you have to be a little more preventative in terms of rebuilding the calipers. This is not a terribly difficult job. Kind of messy, though. Honda sells a rebuild kit for this purpose.

 

can u replace the boot without having to rebuild the caliper?

 

The caliper needs to come off the car and have the piston removed to get the boot installed, you are pretty much rebuilding the caliper.